Rating: PG
Word Count: 1317
Genre: Gen?
Summary: Do you regret it?
AN: I thought of this last night, when I was dead tired >.> IDK if it makes any sense.
 

JiYong pushes open the door and blindly steps into the pitch-black room, bare feet stepping over clothes and shoes and paper. It’s luck, or maybe extreme familiarity, that JiYong finds his way to the bed with ease. He pushes the boy sleeping there, pushes until the boy groans and rolls over. JiYong smiles briefly and lifts up the covers to slide in. He leaves the ten centimetres of space between them empty. The boy snorts in irritation and turns to face the wall, JiYong lies on his back and looks up at the ceiling where SeungRi’s written Lee SeungHyun in magic marker.

“SeungRi?”

“Tired,” is the immediate reply, as if he were anticipating it. SeungRi doesn’t really feel like talking, but JiYong ignores this. He waits for a while, listening to SeungRi breathing.

“Do you regret it?”

SeungRi’s silent for so long this time JiYong suspects he may have fallen back asleep again. But that doesn’t matter, not really, because JiYong will get his answer one way or another. And sure enough, SeungRi replies five minutes after the question is asked.

“Regret what?”

Not quite the response JiYong wanted. “Everything.”

This time, when SeungRi waits, JiYong can tell he’s not sleeping. He can almost hear SeungRi’s brain working.

“Not all of it.”

This strikes JiYong as incredibly amusing, but he’s not sure for what reason.

“You?”

JiYong thinks about it for a while. He smirks. “Not all of it,” he replies wryly. He feels SeungRi shift on the bed so that’s he’s facing the ceiling as well.

“What have you got to regret?” SeungRi asks this as if he feels insulted.

“For not working hard enough.” JiYong’s satisfied with his answer, though SeungRi apparently wasn’t.

“You work harder than the rest of us put together,” he says derisively.

JiYong nods. “But that’s work. I meant, I don’t work hard enough as a leader. For BIGBANG.” It’s close enough. SeungRi doesn’t really need to know the real reason.

“Don’t you?”

“If I did, you wouldn’t be as awkward with DaeSung.”

SeungRi rolls his eyes, but of course, no one sees it because it’s two in the morning and his room is dark. Besides, JiYong’s not looking at him. “You can hardly blame yourself for that.”

JiYong makes a noise of assent. “You’re right. But I do anyway.”

SeungRi mulls that over, and comes to the conclusion that JiYong was probably mental. SeungRi knew that already, of course, but it was nice to be able to think it with justification.

“What about you? What have you got to regret.”

SeungRi feels like the temperature dropped twenty degrees. He doesn’t really want to talk anymore. But knowing JiYong, he won’t stop until he gets his answer. “For being selfish.”

JiYong chuckles. “You got that right. Thinking all for yourself when you rat us out to the public whenever you go on talk shows!”

SeungRi doesn’t laugh with him, though he probably should. “That’s... not exactly what I meant.”

“Then what do you mean?”

JiYong waits for SeungRi’s reply, and when he doesn’t get one, he realizes SeungRi’s hiding something. Naturally, JiYong needs to find out exactly what that something was.

“Tell me.”

“I—I’d rather not.”

“Nuh-uh. That’s not how it works, SeungRi, and you know it.”

SeungRi sighs. “I meant how selfish I was five years ago when I took that second chance and got in the second time round.”

“Explain.” It’s one word, but it’s all JiYong can manage. He feels angry for some reason, and sort of scared, but mostly just irritated.

“Well, I joined as the weakest of the group, the one who had to work harder just to keep up with s. I don’t excel in anything; there wasn’t any reason why I should have got in the first place. You need a singer? You’ve got DaeSung. You need a dancer? YoungBae. And me? I bring sales down with my stupid words, I slip up in concerts, I forget the choreography, I take the longest besides you in the studio to record my parts because I can never get it exactly right, not the way you want it to be. And you can admit that if DaeSung or YoungBae worked a bit harder they could take over my spot easily. I’m not needed, JiYong, I don’t bring anything to the group. So it was selfish of me to join and ride my way to fame and even drag you all down with it.”

SeungRi has tears caught in his throat, but he’s long since mastered how to hide it and never let it show. He’s not tired anymore, not physically.

JiYong clears his throat then. “Well, if you ask me, you’re being more selfish by regretting joining the band than anything else. How many people would kill to be in your place right now? And you regret it because now you have to work a bit harder than the rest of us? How is that fair?”

“I wasn’t being selfish when I said it,” SeungRi replied through gritted teeth. “I was thinking of you when I said it.”

“Were you? Do you honestly think we’d be better off without you, now? Sure, I’ll admit it, if you hadn’t been chosen in the beginning we would have been fine. Probably not the same as we are now, but we’d be fine. But you were chosen, and you’ve grown as an integral part of BIGBANG for five years now. Do you think that if you were to leave now we’d suddenly take off? You’re a part of what BIGBANG is now, you’re a reason it is what it is. And I’m pretty damn happy with how we turned out. Don’t regret a good thing, SeungRi, no matter the reason.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel any better.” It didn’t, in fact. Somehow, it made him feel worse, knowing he didn’t really believe those words, even if JiYong did.

“That’s because I didn’t say it to make you feel better,” JiYong said distinctly. “I told you the truth. Don’t regret it, do something about it! I told you I don’t work hard enough, so I will! I suggest you do the same, SeungRi. Work hard enough until you feel you’ve earned your place, don’t sit around regretting how much life would be better if you weren’t around, because let me tell you something, SeungRi, it wouldn’t.”

“Work harder, huh? I guess that means I should get some new jokes.”

JiYong snorted. “Yeah, you should. They .”

“YoungBae-hyung thinks they’re funny.”

“He laughs so you don’t feel bad. They . And while you’re at it, hit the gym or something.”

“I’m sure Master Hwang misses having me around to bully.”

“And focus on improving your voice.”

“More time with you in the studio? Great.”

“And work on your dancing.”

“We could bring SeungHyun-hyung along, too.”

JiYong turns his head to look at SeungRi. He almost smiles at the faraway look on SeungRi’s face. “And most of all, you should believe in yourself.”

This made SeungRi hesitate. He turned to catch JiYong staring at him. “And if I don’t?”

JiYong considers this for a moment. “Well... I guess it’s more than enough that I believe in you, anyway.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

SeungRi sighed for a moment. He supposed he never really believed JiYong as the comforting type anyway. But JiYong had given him something, a goal to work towards. No matter how much he doubted JiYong’s words about regret, he’d follow his hyung’s advice anyway. It seemed that if you followed JiYong you could never fail. Work harder? He could do that. And one day, maybe he’d be able to look at JiYong and believe he deserved to have someone like JiYong leading him.

“Hyung?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re wrong. You work hard enough. You’re a damn good leader.”

This time, it’s JiYong who hesitates. “Thanks, maknae.”

“No problem.”